A~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK
SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}, _good men_, &c. &c.--and even
in the volumes of Greek plays which he presented to the library on his
departure, we observe, among other instances, the common word {~GREEK
SMALL LETTER CHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER
OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} provided with its English
representative in the margin.

But, notwithstanding his backwardness in the mere verbal scholarship,
on which so large and precious a portion of life is wasted,[42] in all
that general and miscellaneous knowledge which is alone useful in the
world, he was making rapid and even wonderful progress. With a mind
too inquisitive and excursive to be imprisoned within statutable
limits, he flew to subjects that interested his already manly tastes,
with a zest which it is in vain to expect that the mere pedantries of
school could inspire; and the irregular, but ardent, snatches of study
which he caught in this way, gave to a mind like his an impulse
forwards, which left more disciplined and plodding competitors far
behind. The list, indeed, which he has left on record of the works, in
all departments of literature, which he thus hastily and greedily
devoured before he was fifteen years of age, is such as almost to
startle belief,--comprising, as it does, a range and variety of
study, which might make much older "helluones librorum" hide their
heads.

Not to argue, however, from the powers and movements of a mind like
Byron's, which might well be allowed to take a privileged direction of
its own, there is little doubt, that to _any_ youth of talent and
ambition, the plan of instruction pursued in the great schools and
universities of England, wholly inadequate as it is to the
intellectual wants of the age,[43] presents an alternative of evils
not a little embarrassing. Difficult, nay, utterly impossible, as he
will find it, to combine a competent acquisition of useful knowledge
with that round of antiquated studies which a pursuit of scholastic
honours requires, he must either, by devoting the whole of his
attention and ambition to the latter object, remain ignorant on most
of those subjects upon which mind grapples with mind in life, or by
adopting, as Lord Byron and other distinguished perso